From Whence He Came
by ReidsFanGirl18
Summary: While looking through his grandmother's attic, Reid finds a mysterious crate, its contents give him a window almost a century into the past, divulging secrets he never suspected about his family and how/why his mother's side of it came to the United States, helping him better understand his Nana, his heritage, even himself as he prepares for the next great chapter of his life...
1. Chapter 1

**This story, while not directly connected to it, was born out of a story that I just finished writing the other day, called Close to Home. Through writing it, I was able to get to know my OC's from my main stories better, especially Spencer's grandmother. This story fits into my main series of fics and takes place during T-Minus 9 Months and Counting, while Maeve is pregnant. The basic structure is going to be that there will be entry and ending chapters in the present day and the rest will be flashbacks delving into Reid's ancestors, contemporary relatives, and even his own past. I love reviews because it lets me know how the story is being received so any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. Enjoy!**

"To be ignorant of what came before you were born is to perpetually remain a child. For what is the worth of a human life? Unless, by the records of history, it is woven into the lives of his ancestors." – Cicero

Present Day

Reid could hardly contain his excitement, he was going to be a father in less than seven months! He and Maeve had come so far since he'd first made contact with her over three years ago. Now here they were, married for almost a year, and about to be parents.

On this particular weekend, he was up at his grandmother's house in rural New York, looking for old toys and books from his own childhood that his son or daughter might like. He'd made the ten hour trip by train, in seven hours the day before. The train ride had been crowded and long, but it was the fastest way there. As always, Nana had been overjoyed to see him, and quick to nag him about how little he visited her and how much the dangerous nature of his work made her worry. That was Nana, a ball of pride, worry, and overactive maternal instincts. She had always been that way and it was hard for Reid to imagine her as being anything else.

The attic was one, huge, dark, dusty room, the two small windows on the east and west sides of the house didn't cast nearly enough light into the giant open room, which is why he was glad to find that an old lamp he'd discovered next to a long-abandoned sofa, still worked. So far he'd found a barrel of painted wooden blocks, and several volumes of classic fairy tales, but surely there was more up here than that. For all the time he and his cousins had spent at their grandmother's as children, there had to be.

He looked around for a corner of the attic he had yet to sift through or a container he had yet to open, that's when he saw a large pile of cardboard boxes, each one labeled with the first name of one of his relatives. That looked promising.

Not wanting to take anything that wasn't actually his, whether the rightful owners had seen or done anything with it in the last ten to twenty years or not, he circled the pile until he found the box with his own name on it and took that.

In it, he found his rock and fossil collections, notebooks, chemistry set, coin collection, baseball glove, science fair trophies, chess set, and old textbooks; all things he would share with his child, when they were a little bit older. It wasn't exactly what he was hoping to find, but it was all still worth taking home for the day when he or she would he ready to enjoy these things.

Then he saw that there was a second set of labeled boxes in the same pile, and again opened the one with his name on it. This one contained photo albums, report cards, framed copies of his degrees, school pictures, graduation photos from high school and college…along with every single formal paper he had ever written for any class he'd ever taken, including his three dissertations. He was starting to doubt that Nana was even capable of throwing anything away, some of them he had no idea how or why she'd even obtained a copy.

Nana had always said that she was a self-described packrat… _clearly she wasn't joking… _he thought to himself.

That was when he saw it… a giant wooden crate, hidden in the center of the pile, with the others stacked all around and on top as if it had been deliberately obscured. It was big, twice the size of the boxes old computers once came in.

Carefully, Reid moved the rest of the smaller boxes out of the way and stared for a moment at the large crate in front of him. It was labeled, letters were etched into the sides, but the wood was so worn that he couldn't make them out, or even be sure they were in English.

The box was sealed, judging from the hardened substance between the crate and its lid that looked like clear, hard plastic, the lid had probably been glued down, who knows how many years ago… Reid put his foot on one side of the lid and yanked at the opposite side with both hands. One side gave way, the other didn't, and the lid ended up splitting in two as he yanked off the jagged half that had been willing to budge.

In the crate, he found a bunch of old manila folders, leather-bound journals, and black and white photographs, and a smaller wooden box, this one with a padlock on it. What was even more surprising was the fact that almost none of the documents in the envelopes or the writing in all except the most recent journal was in English, the rest of it appeared to be in Russian, although it was hard to tell with just a glace because several languages that Reid knew, employed the Cyrillic alphabet.

The oldest journal was dated to 1917… It was beautiful, worn but well-kept scarlet leather with gold lettering, and based on the writing on the inside cover it belonged to a woman named Olga… But who was this Olga, and why was her diary in a crate in Nana's attic?

_"She loved mysteries so much that she became one." – Unknown _


	2. Chapter 2

Reid took the oldest journal, the one belonging to Olga, sat down on the floor against the wall, and began to read…

Olga, December 30th 1917

Tikhon and I had been running for days, always keeping our identities hidden, using dark, rough clothing to conceal our aristocratic rank. The family crest and jewels were nothing more than a gigantic liability if they were seen by the wrong eyes, by the right eyes they still commanded the proper respect due to a noble household. In the right hands, they were bargaining chips with which to arrange our escape and the silence of those who aided us. The problem was, it was getting harder and harder to tell the difference.

Ever since the October Revolution months earlier, it had become clear that it wasn't only the crown and the lives of the Imperial Family in danger. Those with enough resources and foresight to escape had fled across the Eastern, Western, and Southern borders. Tikhon however, had put his foot down, he was bound and determined to marry me, and even more determined to do it on Russian soil.

Tikhon was the eldest son of the Alexandrova family, one of the highest ranking clans in Russia without any direct blood ties to the Romanovs. I, was the well-educated daughter of a wealthy shipyard owner. Our marriage was one of love, something I had noticed was all too uncommon the higher up you went in rank and closer you were to the crown. At a time when most of equal clout were trading, mixing, and matching their sons and daughters like chess pieces for economic or political gain, Tikhon's parents had mercifully not only allowed the marriage to take place, but welcomed me as one of their own, and I was forever grateful. Then what had seemed at the time, to be nothing more than another peasant rebellion, a spark of unhappiness set alight by the hardships brought on by the war, had been stoked into a full blown revolution, a flame that would soon destroy our lives forever.

These people were not satisfied with simply putting an end to the subjugation of commoners or pressuring the Tsar to stop dragging his feet on the modernization of the government. They were intent on murdering us for the crime of being born of a status above destitution, they were going to slay every last one of us until the streets ran red with our blood. Escape had quickly become our only choice.

My in-laws had traveled ahead of us taking a boat from the north-western shore into Estonia and then taking a train south into Lithuania. Now we had to follow along the same route. We bought our passage on the ferry southward, with twenty pieces of silver. The ferry was piloted by stern-looking old man, nothing like my own sweet-tempered father. I immediately pushed the thought away, it was all but certain that I would never see Papa again, he refused to leave his shop, believing that without high-ranking political connections he would be spared. I doubted that them, and I still doubted it, but I hadn't had the heart to tell him, nor the guts to make him come with us. It was either stay in Russia and be butchered like a caribou in Siberia, or leave with my husband and begin a new life.

A storm prevented us from making land in Estonia, so we kept going south. We stayed below deck until we reached Riga, the capital city of Latvia, that way we wouldn't be seen by any red spies that might be trying to catch those trying to flee. I worried about the train ride from Riga into Lithuania, there would be more people, more chance that we would get caught. People had never bothered me before, but without any way to know who to trust and who not to, I saw a murderous rebel in every face we passed. We had made it, we had left the Motherland behind and yet I still did not feel safe. I wondered if I ever would again.

As it was, the train was crowded but by then the journey had stripped us of any physical indication of our former home, we were just another couple on their way to Lithuania. We didn't talk to anyone voluntarily, but if small talk was offered, we answered politely. I had always hated small talk, finding it soul-sucking and tedious, now it was worse than ever.

The train we were on was old, the glass on its windows as cracked as a used eggshell and the bitter, icy wind whipped almost everyone on board. In my suitcase I had my long, gray wool coat lined with snow leopard fur, but I dared not wear it. I'd rather be cold and alive than warm and dead. That being said though, Tikhon, being the gentleman that he was, took off his own coat each night and draped it over me while I slept. How the commoners got it in their heads that the aristocracy consisted entirely of selfish, backward, power-hungry, money-grubbing devils was something that I had a feeling I would never understand, and things like this were why.

I know not if Tikhon heard me, though I hope he didn't, I cried myself to sleep all those nights. I cried for the tragedy of what had become of our once-great nation, I cried for the family and familiar life we were forced to leave behind… who knew what the communist bastards would do next? Would they murder the Tsar? Would they stoop so low as to kill the Tsarina and her children? Were they capable of that? Of course they were! They were killing innocents by the thousands upon thousands all over the country. They were savages, there was no way around that now…

We arrived in Palanga Lithuania on New Year's Day, 1918, almost a month and a half since we had left Moscow under the cover of darkness.

It was a beautiful winter morning, cold, but the sun shown down and lit up the Baltic Sea like a thousand diamonds shining across the water. I was happy that day, despite myself, despite all that had happened, maybe we would finally be safe here, maybe we really were far enough away that they wouldn't find us…. Maybe…


	3. Chapter 3

From Whence He Came3

Reid was so enthralled that he didn't even hear Nana come upstairs, or notice her setting a piece of his favorite cake beside him, nor did he register her staring at the diary as if she had been set on fire by the sight of it.

April 5th 1929

Eleven years have passed since Tikhon and I arrived in Lithuania. Tikhon took a job as a furniture maker in order to support us. He made everything we had, and made good money selling what we didn't keep, he produced beautiful work. After we arrived, the communists achieved stability in Russia, renaming our beloved homeland the so called "Soviet Union" and our beloved St. Petersburg, where I had grown up, became Leningrad. It broke my heart, but there was nothing we could do, but watch from afar and pray that someday our people might come to their senses.

Our beloved Tsar was killed by Lenin's men, along with his family several months after we arrived here. The savages tried to cover it up, but one thing Lenin should have planned for, soldiers talk. Forget housewives, Soldiers and police, and guards, are the biggest gossips to walk the face of God's green earth. Those drunken idiots spilled the beans faster than you could say 'hello'… no doubt leaving whoever was in charge to clean up the mess for face the consequences… I hope Lenin executed them too, they actually deserved it. There is a rumor though, people, even here, seem afraid to talk about it… it's not hard to understand why there are certain people who don't want anything to be said about it… the rumor on the street is that Tsaravitch Alexi along with one of his elder sisters, may have escaped. I pray the rumor is true, I pray that Alexi grows up to one day reclaim what is his by birthright… and kick those savages back to Hell where they rightfully belong.

Our first two years in Lithuania did not go all as we had hoped. Too late, a war had begun between Lithuania and our homeland. The Communists wanted to move into a section of territory long disputed between Lithuania, which up until quite recently had been part of Germany, and mother Russia. The communists were flexing their muscles, trying to prove that they were greater than the Tsar by doing what the Tsar had failed to accomplish in the Great War. Throughout these troubled times, Tikhon and I feared we would lose our home yet again to the Soviet Union. We were so terrified of that possibility, so ready to leave at a moment's notice that we dared not even try for the children we both desperately wanted.

Even after the Communists retreated back to the motherland, we kept very few of our valuables, and those we still had were hidden in unassuming trunks under lock and key. We protected the secret of where we had come from so fiercely that I dared not answer a single letter from Papa… If it was intercepted and the Soviets learned where we were, we might all have been killed, not just Tokhon and me, but Papa as well. I protected us all by silence, though it broke my heart as I read each one and watched him grow closer and closer to thinking that we were dead or worse, that I no longer loved him. It was almost more than I could bear, but it would have been worse to answer and be the reason we all must die…

Finally though, at long last, Tikhon and I have welcomed two beautiful daughters, just a few days ago on Pascha. Their names are Panya and Maria Tikhon Alexandrova… I hope they never have to leave this place, I hope we are never again forced to run like rats from a sinking ship… I hope my daughters will be free to spend their lives here, safe and happy… that is really all I want… someday I will tell them what their names mean, where we come from and who they are, but it is best if I wait until they are older to share that with them. So much has been lost, but I want them to first understand that they have all they really need. They are so beautiful, pure, and full of life that for the first time in almost twelve years I believe there may be hope in the long term. The girls are my pride, my joy, and my hope for the future. Our lives may have been changed, our home may have been robbed from us, but my daughters, Lord have Mercy, will not have to know that pain. I am home here, I feel at peace, that I am where I belong, as I look out at the Baltic Sea, that beautiful sea that shimmers like crystal and sapphire… May we never leave this place… never again to the iron grip of the reds, and never at all to the propriety-lacking west…


End file.
